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The Bargain Nexus - Fourth Protocol
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List Price: $14.98
Our Price: $14.75
Your Save: $ 0.23 ( 2% )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Starring: Michael Caine, Pierce Brosnan, Ned Beatty, Joanna Cassidy, Julian Glover
Directed By: John Mackenzie
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302816150
Format: Closed-captioned
ISBN: 6302816157
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Release Date: 1993-12-13
Running Time: 119
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1987-08-28
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: The Fourth Protocol
Comment: We received this DVD and were disappointed to find that it was not for this region and the language was spanish.
We emailed the supplier, davede, and returned the product to them on October 7th, requiring a US Postal Service Delivery Confirmation Receipt.
We are waiting for a refund.
Len Tranter
Customer Rating:
Summary: Don't rent THIS verision
Comment: While this is a reasonably enjoyable bit of spy vs. spy escapism, the quality of this rental download is pathetic. I rented this film to watch on my laptop during a recent airline trip and frankly, I was a bit shocked. It's quite obviously been transferred from a twenty year old edited for TV analog video tape complete with choppy breaks for commercials and awful audio and video quality.
Amazon should really be embarrassed to offer (let alone charge money for) this version. This is certainly not what customers expect when they rent or purchase an Unbox Video. (Thankfully, it's the exception and not the rule)
Customer Rating:
Summary: Absorbing thriller!
Comment: A Russian pilot is disposed to reaffirm his noble patriotism setting off a nuclear weapon near an American base in U.K. Michael Caine will be the assigned officer in order to foil this brutal incident that would visibly alter the delicate terror' s equilibrium. In sum a pretty good spy thriller, where Pierce Brosnan reaffirmed his own style as a promissory actor, after his successful brief cameo in 1980 with The long good Friday. It's not mere casualty John Mackenzie had been the same director in both films.
Based on the famous novel of Frederick Forsyth (The day of the jackal)
Customer Rating:
Summary: DVD available in Region 2 of suspenseful thriller
Comment: In the 1960s Michael Caine appeared in a series of spy movies as Len Deighton's fictional cold war hero Harry Palmer. Then in 1986 Caine appeared again in much the same mold except in this instance, since it was based on a book by Frederick Forsyth, his character had a different name, even though in image and style he was very much a Palmer clone.
Forsyth has had a number of his works adapted into movies. In the 1970s we had such classics as THE ODESSA FILE and DAY OF THE JACKAL and even Christopher Walken fresh off his Oscar for THE DEER HUNTER appeared in 1980s DOGS OF WAR based on another bestseller. This mid-1980s entry is perhaps a little grittier in tone and more frightening in scope then the other movies mentioned and is ultimately fascinating as much for the picture it paints of the machinations of the intelligence community as for the intrigue played out on screen.
One needs to understand the political context in which this sly political thriller was written to appreciate it.
Today we are consumed with tackling terrorism but back in the 1980s the big threat was the Soviet Union and its nuclear arsenal. Indeed there were regular protests outside the American airbase of Greenham Common when people expressed their displeasure at the presence of cruise missiles.
Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this movie for today's audience is the appearance of a pre-007 Pierce Brosnan as a Russian spy. Having been forced to decline the role of James Bond in 1986 Brosnan instead appeared in this movie as one of the key villains of the piece - and what a nasty piece of work he is. Cold and emotionaless Brosnan's character obeys his orders without question and one wishes that he had played 007 more like this. In fact the plot of this movie bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of the earlier 007 movie OCTOPUSSY though it is handled in a much more serious and plausible manner here.
As with that 1983 James Bond movie, here the KGB plans to explode a nuclear weapon close to an American airbase with the blame going to the United States. With the KGB smuggling in a weapon piece-by-piece the movie follows the plot of the book quite closely with British intelligence trying to track down the Russian agent after it intercepts materials used in the construction of an atomic weapon.
Playing the part of a Russian scientist assigned to put all the pieces together is the beautiful Joanna Cassidy. Her scenes with Brosnan allow the future 007 star to portray a truly ruthless killer for once.
The pace of the movie may prove to be a little too pedestrian for those who are used to the action thrillers of today. It is a more measured and (dare I say it) more intelligent approach to the thriller genre but it manages to ratchet up the suspense quite effectively and is well worth a look-see.
For DVD collectors with region-free players there is a DVD of this movie available in Region 2 (Europe) that also features a rather interesting making-of-featurette.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Great Movie But no DVD
Comment: I saw this movie when it first came out. Loved it. Why Why Why no one has put this to DVD i'll never know? I'll have to keep waiting I guess.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Frederick Forsyth wrote the novel and screenplay for this story about a plot to stage an enormous nuclear accident in England, a catastrophe so large that its source can never be identified but will lead to assumptions that America is behind it. Michael Caine plays an aging intelligence agent who picks up clues that the ingredients for such an apocalypse are being smuggled piece-by-piece into the U.K.--but he cannot seem to get his superiors to care. Caine is outstanding in a role that seems tailor-made for him, and Pierce Brosnan is very good as the Russian agent working undercover in England to effect the planned tragedy. The film perfectly captures a spreading suspicion and resentment toward superpower adventurism, even though such sentiments are, in fact, being exploited by the bad guys. Caine, as always, suggests a man walking a narrow line through a gauntlet of moral compromises. --Tom Keogh
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